Macminicolo turns 10

My favorite Mac mini colocation service, macminicolo, turned 10 today. There’s a great timeline post on their blog that chronicles the history of the Mac mini and of macminicolo itself. They didn’t ask me to post this, but they’ve been long-time supporters (and sponsors) of this blog and I’m excited to wish them continued success.

I first got turned onto the mini by Erica Sadun, shortly after I started writing for TUAW. Starting at $499, it’s been a great, low-cost solution for Mac owners since it’s inception. The latest update to the platform may have dampened enthusiasm a bit by limiting upgrade options, but it remains a powerful machine for the price. I currently have two in service locally and one colocated. I’ve owned six minis over the years, if memory serves. I love them.

Colocating a mini (running it “headless” remotely) is great for a lot of “common” things. For example, this site and the Marked 2 website are hosted on one, and I run SSH tunnels/VPN, SFTP backups, file servers, and more. It’s also great for always-on chores such as Slogger and other scripts. If you keep Day One running on a remote mini along with Slogger, your Dropbox/iCloud journal is always synced and ready after your “social” entries are collected and injected.

Pro tip: if you’re running a headless mini (on macminicolo or elsewhere), check out this blog post on HDMI dongles. Tricking the mini into thinking you’re running a full size monitor on it improves various things, but most noticeably VNC (Remote Desktop) access. You will be grateful for the upgrade.

Macminicolo will host your mini (on a high-bandwidth, superfast pipeline) starting at $35 a month, which is a great deal if you have use for the myriad options it provides. They can also sell you a fully loaded mini and additional storage space at very competitive rates.